Science Assessment ~ Items ~ CE119002

Fully-grown adults are much larger in size than young children. What happens to the cells of the body during the growth of a child?

The cells of a growing child divide to make more cells, and those cells are each half the size as the cells were before they divided. The cells do not grow before they divide again.
The cells of a growing child divide to make more cells, and those cells grow to become the same size as the cells were just before they divided.
The cells of the body of a growing child grow, but the number of cells stays the same.
The size and number of cells in the body of a growing child stay the same.

Group	Correct	Total	Percent
Overall	3959	6382	62%
Grades
6–8	2343	3985	59%
9–12	1609	2380	68%
Gender
Male	1934	3118	62%
Female	1959	3145	62%
Primary Language
English	3583	5675	63%
Other	294	553	53%

Disciplinary Core Ideas: LS1.B In multicellular organisms individual cells grow and then divide via a process called mitosis, thereby allowing the organism to grow. The organism begins as a single cell (fertilized egg) that divides successively to produce many cells, with each parent cell passing identical genetic material (two variants of each chromosome pair) to both daughter cells. Cellular division and differentiation produce and maintain a complex organism, composed of systems of tissues and organs that work together to meet the needs of the whole organism.

Science Assessment